September 17, 2010

And now for something a little different... Nomes from Inkcrush, who is knowledgeable on all things artistic, shares with us some very beautiful zombie artwork.

When Sya mentioned her Week of The Living Dead, I immediately thought of Jason Chan's zombie artwork titled Zombie Playground. Jason Chan is a brilliant artist who has also created many book covers. If you are not yet familiar with his name, you're probably familiar with his cover work for Lisa Mantchev and the UK edition of The Hunger Games:

Despite the zombies being a horror theme - there's a certain whimsicalness about it. A child's playground is a perfect stage for a zombie showdown - and Chan captures that feeling of how when you're a kid mucking about at the park, anything can happen.

The child warriors are fierce, valiant and feisty. Their clothes are vibrant and their stances and expressions are brimming with life and energy. Their little bodies are giving it all they've got and in this imaginative play they're 100% committed.

The zombies are, by Adele's definition, the best kind: Voodoo zombies. Coming in droves, they are bland, in drab colours, their arms and faces and demeanour suggest they are brain dead and in a stupor. Slack-jawed and simple-minded. Beings of death and terror.

Despite the gory theme, the picture is kind of magical. The sky so blue and the showdown so completely engaging. If I look at at long enough I can almost imagine the next few scenes that take place after this freeze frame - and I'm imagining zombie slaughter :)

When you're a kid, you play make-believe like you mean it. I can imagine these kids drinking straight out of an ice cold pitcher when they get home, exhausted after the best day at the park - having survived the zombie apocalypse.

Up Next of Week of The Living Dead...

Forget all this zombie virus notice, Nev of Nev360 has an altogether more sinister theory in The Modern Zombie.